Greenberg's book, 101 myths of the bible, shows a clear path where Jews ripped off several key bible concepts such as several parts of the creation account, adam and eve, eve coming from adam's rib, a snake's tempting of eve, etc from egyptian myth.

I want to know why this is not discussed more than it is. If actually true, can't we all just go home and quit debating about this god/ no god nonsense? What is the flaw with this "proof" that Jews are an invention born from Egypt myth? How can there be a flaw when the egyptians pre date the Jews. Egyptians were polytheistic pagans… Jews stole so much from their history and incorporated it into their own format.

[quote author=“Noggin”]
I want to know why this is not discussed more than it is.

Nogmonster,

This is a question that can be asked about many subjects and is one to which, unfortunately, we all know the answer.

When Dan Brown raises questions about the divinity of Jesus Christ, CNN believes it appropriate to ask Jerry Falwell for his opinion. As if he is an expert on the historicity of Jesus. (I am working from memory here, it may have been Robertson or Dobson)

In our country, sharing the prejudices of the majority and having a sharp tongue makes you an “expert.” So long as what you are saying is something some morons will listen to, you are giving an outlet for your absurd beliefs. Challenging widely held opinion, especially about God (and the causes of 9/11) automatically makes you into a crazed fanatic.

This is the level of discourse we have in the United States. This is why we should all turn off our televisions and stop offering legitimacy to morons masquerading as experts, like Coulter, Hannity, Dobson, Chris Matthews, Anderson Cooper, Katie Couric, Oprah, BillO, Alan Colmes, Maureen Dowd, Tom Delay, Giuliani, etc. etc. etc. . . .

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What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured? And what becomes of harmony, if there is hell? I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don’t want more suffering. And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price.
-Ivan Karamazov

[quote author=“waltercat”][quote author=“Noggin”]
I want to know why this is not discussed more than it is.

Nogmonster,

This is a question that can be asked about many subjects and is one to which, unfortunately, we all know the answer.

When Dan Brown raises questions about the divinity of Jesus Christ, CNN believes it appropriate to ask Jerry Falwell for his opinion. As if he is an expert on the historicity of Jesus. (I am working from memory here, it may have been Robertson or Dobson)

In our country, sharing the prejudices of the majority and having a sharp tongue makes you an “expert.”

Nogmonster.. I like it.

CNN gets Falwell on the phone for an opinion, I remember that. But this is America. They don’t have to pander like they do. And besides, don’t they want ratings? Can’t you imagine the hubbub stir caused by CNN getting “controversial” opinions to side up to the Falwell opinions? Don’t you think more people would tune in?

Yet, apparantly, they don’t. Remember when Sam Harris appeared on O’Reilly’s show? They gave him like 5 minutes and railroaded the discussion… talking down to him like Harris was some sort of derilect hopeless lost soul.

I think someone should go on CNN with this evidence that Christianity is a rip off from a rip off.

Christians reinvented Judaism. Judaism plagerized the Eqyptians, Sumarians, Mesopotamian myths. What Falwell believed as ‘god’s honest truth’ was nothing short of creative writing and redacting on early hebrews from pagan myths.

THERE IS HARDLY ANYTHING ORIGINAL IN THE OLD TESTAMENT!!

I think these allogations should be brought up, challenged, and pushed to the front of the CNN screen… let the Falwells and Robertsons come in with their guns blazing… they’ll eventually discover they are shooting blanks. If the Jews invented their doctrine from egypt, wouldn’t christians want to know this? eh?

you mean… the old testament is a fabrication?

YES it is!! And here is why… (pull out Greenburg).

Unless…......... unless Greenburg (101 myths of the bible) is totally smoking some very stinky weed or eating some rather odd duck mushrooms.

Can’t take very much credit for it. It’s adapted from the name of a character from The Office (the original version)

They don’t have to pander like they do. And besides, don’t they want ratings? Can’t you imagine the hubbub stir caused by CNN getting “controversial” opinions to side up to the Falwell opinions? Don’t you think more people would tune in?

People would start write-in campaigns targeting their sponsors (campaigns led by Pat Robertson):

“You’re questioning my deeply held religious values? How dare you? I’m just going to have to get my Zoloft from a different company. One that doesn’t sponsor the Christian-hating News Network.”

Networks are terrified of what the competition will say about them. PLUS, they are run by people with little imagination and a plethora of ignorance.

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What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured? And what becomes of harmony, if there is hell? I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don’t want more suffering. And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price.
-Ivan Karamazov

[quote author=“Noggin”]Greenberg’s book, 101 myths of the bible, shows a clear path where Jews ripped off several key bible concepts such as several parts of the creation account, adam and eve, eve coming from adam’s rib, a snake’s tempting of eve, etc from egyptian myth.

I want to know why this is not discussed more than it is. If actually true, can’t we all just go home and quit debating about this god/ no god nonsense? What is the flaw with this “proof” that Jews are an invention born from Egypt myth? How can there be a flaw when the egyptians pre date the Jews. Egyptians were polytheistic pagans… Jews stole so much from their history and incorporated it into their own format.

end of story… or ?

Noggin

I had read something about how the OT was derived from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Is this what you are talking about? I mean, it makes total sense that the Jews and their mythology would have been influenced by the mythologies of the towering civilizxations that surrounded them—Egypt, Babylon and Persia. And when Hellenization arrived in Palestine, after three or so centuries of permeating the Jewish psyche and culture, we got Christianity.

It is easy to see why a believer would find the idea of influences that led to the Old Testament troubling. The OT is supposed to have come directly from God. And not only did it not come directly from God, but it emerged out of the odious pagan religion of the Jew’s arch-enemy, the Egyptians!

I’m not too eager to accuse the authors of the OT and NT of plagiarism.

First, it’s possible that the Egyptian myths were in part a subconscious influence on the authors, or that the Jewish and Egyptian myths had a common source.

Second, even if we proved plagiarism, that wouldn’t be enough to show that the myths are just stories. The goal is to show that ALL scripture shouldn’t be read literally, not just the OT. Joseph Campbell’s books Masks of God and Hero With a Thousand Faces dealt with the commonalities in various religious myths around the world. Campbell believed that the myths were references or allegories for certain ideas about human existence.

(page 56-57 Greenberg’s 101 myths of the bible) When god expelled Adam from Eden, the man had wisdom but not immortality and his descendents had to suffer for his sin. This aspect of the story borrowed elements from a Mesopotamian myth about someone named Adapa.
...

In the Adapa story, the hero had wisdom but not immortality; he sinned against the gods and had to be punished; as a result of his sin, he lost the opportunity to eat certain foods that would have conferred immortality upon him, and, as a result of his sin, humanity suffered [disease and illness] and each loss was immortality. Fragments of this myth have been found in a 14th century BC library in Egypt (before Exodus) and a 7th century BC library in Assyria, attesting to its literary longevity and widespread influence. Such a legend would have been well known among Hebrew scribes. The similarity to the Genesis story line indicates that the Adapa myth helped shape the biblical narrative.

I tried to verify that this was not invented, and came up with this link that verifies the Adapa story:

Cain Killed Abel is ripped off from the conflict found between Set and Osiris but also the story was influenced by Sumerian myths about a shepherd named Dumuzi

google it and see.

Cain = Osiris
Abel =Horus
Seth= Set
Geb= Adam
Nut= Eve

Greenberg 101 Myths of the Bible, pg 68
In the egyptian story, one brother killed the other and the 3rd founded the legitimate line of rule…

just like in Genesis. There is a name switch, but Dumuzi takes care of that.

After reading this book one receives a feeling of “this is just too much for coincidence” washing over and over them. What then? Are we to say that the enemy egyptian also had the Hebrew god dictating similar creation stories to them??

It appears that is one of the only escape routes. That the Hebrew god dictated creation and the stupid egyptians wrote it down wrong, or were prideful and deliberately wrote things kind of screwey as god dictated… and Moses got the dictation correct later when god gave up on the pagan egyptians.

Don’t give up on me Rami—if anyone can point out the flaws you can. I hope people put their 2 cents in on this.

“Carstonio”]I’m not too eager to accuse the authors of the OT and NT of plagiarism.

First, it’s possible that the Egyptian myths were in part a subconscious influence on the authors, or that the Jewish and Egyptian myths had a common source.

I frankly don’t care whether it was deliberate plagiarism or subconscious plagiarism. It seems clear that the OT concepts and ideas werederived from an earlier mythology.

In the case of Christianity, however, I think we are dealing with deliberate plagiarism. Christianity was deliberately devised as a Jewish version of the pagan Mysteries.

Second, even if we proved plagiarism, that wouldn’t be enough to show that the myths are just stories. The goal is to show that ALL scripture shouldn’t be read literally, not just the OT. Joseph Campbell’s books Masks of God and Hero With a Thousand Faces dealt with the commonalities in various religious myths around the world. Campbell believed that the myths were references or allegories for certain ideas about human existence.

Oh, absolutely! I agree. And I agree with Ian McKellen, who said that many people simply do not understand the concept of metaphor.

In the case of Christianity, however, I think we are dealing with deliberate plagiarism. Christianity was deliberately devised as a Jewish version of the pagan Mysteries.

I think my exuberance here is so strong because maybe I am discovering this for the first time for myself. In the recent past, I heard people say how Jesus came from pagan myths but dismissed it probably because I was not well versed in the pagan mythologies. Now that I am getting a handle on what egyptians, sumerians, mesopotamians believed and perpetuated… and when they believed it… and also getting a feel for how hebrews (people of the Old Testament) may have mixed and interacted with these pagans, I am overwhelmed by the lack of outcry among atheists who could justifiably use this as a slam dunk, case closed example as to how Chrisitianity is really pagan in nature… completely ripped off from an earlier time.

If what I am reading is not bogus, one would think Harris, Dawkins etc would place neon pointy signs in their writings that show the way to Christianity’s pagan beginnings. (I am not well read in Dawkins so maybe he does that). Harris’ Letter to a Christian nation only touches on this in the most briefest of mentionables. For this reason I wonder if what I am reading is more problematic than the author lets on.

[quote author=“Noggin”]I am overwhelmed by the lack of outcry among atheists who could justifiably use this as a slam dunk, case closed example as to how Chrisitianity is really pagan in nature… completely ripped off from an earlier time.

Maybe because it wouldn’t do much good. The fundamentalists and literalists would refuse to listen, or else they would present bogus evidence that the plagiarism went the other way. The liberals and moderates would dismiss it as irrelevant to their personal faith. The only people who would listen are the people who already have doubts.

[quote author=“Noggin”]Obviously, the authors Dawkins, Dennett and Harris found the links less than compelling. which leads me to be suspicious of Greenberg.

But none of these people are scholars on ancient religions or cultures. They probably felt more comfortable battling on territory they were familiar with. And there are many, many fronts on which this battle can be fought.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that the most respected authority in field X knows the first thing about field Y.

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What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured? And what becomes of harmony, if there is hell? I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don’t want more suffering. And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price.
-Ivan Karamazov

[quote author=“waltercat”]But none of these people are scholars on ancient religions or cultures. They probably felt more comfortable battling on territory they were familiar with. And there are many, many fronts on which this battle can be fought.

Whoa, good insight. I had forgotten that Harris is a neuroscientist and that Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist.

So who are our experts on ancient religions and cultures who can debunk the idea of scriptural infallibility? Elaine Pagels?